So should Senator Walsh (D) go or stay

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Jihadin**

Sen. John Walsh was taking personal time at his Helena home as his campaign canceled events and avoided questions about whether the Montana Democrat plans to remain in the U.S. Senate race amid allegations that he plagiarized a research paper.

Walsh was scheduled to be at a Jackson, Wyoming, fundraiser Tuesday with Colorado Sen. Mark Udall, but did not attend.

His campaign also notified Gallatin County Democratic party members that the senator would not appear at a backyard meet-and-greet in Bozeman hosted by Women for Walsh that was scheduled for Wednesday, or a Friday talk on public lands at the county party's new headquarters.

"He took a personal day yesterday," campaign spokeswoman Lauren Passalacqua said Wednesday.

Nobody answered the door at Walsh's home Wednesday. Passalacqua declined to answer questions about Walsh's plans or the postponement of campaign events.

The campaign also provided no reason to the Gallatin County Democrats, said Billy McWilliams, a member of the county party's executive committee.

"Nobody's talking," McWilliams told The Associated Press.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle first reported the postponements.

Walsh has come under increasing pressure after The New York Times reported that he plagiarized portions of the 2007 research project he wrote while attending U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania. The editorial boards of Montana's three largest daily newspapers have called for him to withdraw his candidacy, while others have demanded that he apologize or that he forfeit his master's degree.

"Instead of closing ranks around Walsh, Democrats should call on him to do the right thing," The Billings Gazette wrote in a Sunday editorial. "Having repeatedly said that he wants to do the honorable thing, Walsh should stop campaigning and do his utmost to serve Montanans well in the remainder of his brief Senate appointment."

The Montana Democratic Party continued to pledge its support of Walsh. "Senator Walsh is our U.S. Senator and candidate," party spokesman Bryan Watt said.

Walsh is running against Republican Rep. Steve Daines to keep the Senate seat he was appointed to by Gov. Steve Bullock in February when Max Baucus resigned to become ambassador to China.

Bullock communications director Dave Parker said Wednesday the governor has not spoken to Walsh since the Times' story was published.

Walsh previously said he made unintentional mistakes in not citing others' work in his paper on the spread of democracy in the Middle East. He also said he was being treated for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder at the time, but said he was not blaming PTSD for his mistake.

Since then, Walsh's campaign has gone dark. His website has not been updated since July 30, and his campaign staff last sent a news release Friday. Walsh's normally active Facebook page and Twitter account haven't been updated since the weekend.

Watt said the Democratic Party is not vetting potential replacement candidates, but party leaders are reviewing the steps they would take if Walsh decides to withdraw.

According to party rules, the Democrats would hold a nominating convention to select a replacement. Convention delegates would include county party committee leaders, party executive board members and statewide and federally elected officials — about 175 people, Watt said.

They would gather to nominate potential replacements and hold rounds of balloting until one person received a majority of the votes.

The Montana Secretary of State deadline for submitting a replacement candidate is Aug. 20.

I've a feeling he's going to get recalled back into uniform to have his rank and degree taken from him. I think he should leave this time around and run again a few years down the road. Reason being his "integrity" is now in obviously in question at the moment

**Breotan**

As a person who tends to vote Republican, I say he should definitely stay and fight. I mean Marion Barry got re-elected after getting busted for drugs and going to prison, so why should this Walsh guy roll over?

**curran12**

He's a Democrat in Montana. I am a Montana native, they will either not do anything, or go full torch wielding mob on him. There's not going to be much in the middle, I think.

**Kilkrazy**

The claims of plagiarism should be investigated. It is possible -- though definitely careless and stupid -- to fail to provide correct citations in a paper. It would have to be judged to what extent material had been deliberately copied and used without credit, and how much the entire paper relied on such material.

**Dreadclaw69**

Isn't a basic lack of honesty an asset when you are a politician?

**Frazzled**

I'm sure someone cares, I just can't figure out why.

**kronk**

Meh, I've voted for people that did worse.

**Frazzled**

Come on Kronk, we all know you've done lots of things for people that did worse.

**d-usa**

He will make a great politician. They just copy the laws that the lobbyist slip under their door anyway, so he's got the experience there.

**djones520**

This falls largely in my "meh" category.

**Ouze**

This doesn't seem like a resigning thing. I think we sort of expect our politicians to be dishonest in small things, and the list of politicians who have plagiarized without resigning is pretty long. Eh.

**d-usa**

Well, it feels a bit like an attempted "look at liberals not caring if one of their own screws up" story.

**Easy E**

He should fight. Montanans love a fighter.... amirite?

**nkelsch**

"Failed to cite sources" can often be unintentional or laziness. I feel there is a huge area between a blocked quote without a source, a referencing or re presenting an idea and quote without a source and a lazy copy-paste job as your own material plagiarism.

Even now, college students can have legitimate best-effort papers and fail plagiarism checkers because they don't cite correctly and often all they need to do is fix it and resubmit. The paper was wrong but some simple fixes were an issue.

This article makes it sound like he took a magazine article, dumped it into a paper wholesale and submitted it as that is what 'plagiarism' brings to mind when people hear it.

Since I can't find an article which outlines clearly what was done, and it does sound like maybe he did copy and paste some stuff when he throws out his 'I had PTSD' excuse, when it boils down... it is a local government discussion for those voters. If he has done good work and no one better is around to take his position, so be it. If there are other qualified and experienced people waiting to take up the causes of the state, his time may be done. It is easy to throw people out for any indiscretion, but politics are local.

**Ahtman**

nkelsch wrote:
"Failed to cite sources" can often be unintentional or laziness.

Sort of like how OP doesn't link to his source.

**Jihadin**

Ahtman wrote:
nkelsch wrote:
"Failed to cite sources" can often be unintentional or laziness.

Sort of like how OP doesn't link to his source.

I'm known for that

**whembly**

djones520 wrote:
This falls largely in my "meh" category.

Concur.

**Alpha 1**

This is a scandal ?

**Jihadin**

Think I heard 60% of his thesis was plagiarized.

**Ouze**

Jihadin wrote:
Think I heard 60% of his thesis was plagiarized.

There's a breakdown here. I don't know what percentage it is, but it's quite a bit. There is one pretty big section that was flat out plagiarized, but a lot of the rest is bad attribution.

Certainly it's lazy, bad form, and he should have flunked the course, but expecting him to resign now 7 years later is kind of a stretch.

**lliu**

This is not a war gaming article. I know about politics but this is overboard. However, I vote he goes.

**Jihadin**

True but he gained a rank from graduating from War College and retired at that rank. So I see the US Army recalling him back to duty to remove rank and invalidate his degree.

**squidhills**

Editted. Indigestion is making me snarky.

**whembly**

Well... he's out of the race.

Walsh: “I am ending my campaign so that I can focus on fulfilling the responsibility entrusted to me as your U.S. senator" #mtpol

— Chuck Johnson (@c_sjohnson) August 7, 2014

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Probably saw the writing on the wall??? (bit too early if you ask me)

The GOP’s candidate, Rep. Steve Daines, has led handily all year.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/mt/montana_senate_daines_vs_walsh-4190.html

**Jihadin**

Montana Democratic Sen. John Walsh is dropping out of his Senate race after being dogged by allegations of plagiarism, potentially boosting Republicans' chances of picking up the seat in November.

The senator made the announcement late Thursday in a message to supporters. Walsh said the plagiarism issue has become a "distraction" from the issues.

"I am ending my campaign so that I can focus on fulfilling the responsibility entrusted to me as your U.S. Senator. You deserve someone who will always fight for Montana, and I will," he said in the message.

Calls for Walsh to bow out have grown louder following accusations that first surfaced last month that he plagiarized part of a paper he submitted for his master's degree in 2007.

Three of Montana's largest newspapers recently called for him to withdraw his candidacy, while others have demanded he apologize or forfeit his master's degree.

The decision comes as a U.S. Army War College investigation is set to begin Aug. 15 into the paper that Walsh previously said unintentionally contained wrongfully cited passages. Walsh also had until Monday to drop out of the race.

His decision to withdraw from the November election allows the Montana Democratic Party to hold a nominating convention to choose a replacement candidate before the Aug. 20 deadline to do so. The convention will be composed of Democratic leaders from each county's party committee, along with federal and statewide elected officials and the party's executive board. They will nominate potential candidates who will have a chance to speak before the convention before voting gets underway.

The nominee who receives a majority of votes will be selected as the replacement candidate, according to the party's rules.

Walsh decision is likely to give a boost to Republican Rep. Steve Daines, who is giving up his House seat to run for Senate. Republicans need to gain a net of six seats in the election to take control of the Senate, and Walsh had faced a tough race against Daines before the plagiarism allegations.

Walsh had already announced his candidacy for the seat when Gov. Steve Bullock appointed him in February to replace Max Baucus, who resigned from the Senate to become ambassador to China. Republicans blasted Bullock's appointment of his lieutenant governor as a political move designed to gain an advantage in the elections.

The New York Times revealed the extensive use of unattributed material in Walsh's paper about the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Walsh originally called it an "unintentional mistake" and told The Associated Press part of the blame may lie in his being treated for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder following his deployment in Iraq.

He later said he was not blaming PTSD for his mistake.

Walsh is the only U.S. senator who served in the Iraq war. He capped a 33 years in the Montana National Guard, his career rising to state adjutant general before he took his first elected office in 2013 as Bullock's lieutenant governor in 2013. Walsh received the Master of Strategic Studies degree from the war college at age 47, a year before he became adjutant general overseeing the Guard and the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

**Ahtman**

Alpha 1 wrote:
This is a scandal ?

Not really. It is stupid to be sure, but not a scandal. Now if he had slept with his Professor that would be a scandal.

**Frazzled**

Ahtman wrote:
Alpha 1 wrote:
This is a scandal ?

Not really. It is stupid to be sure, but not a scandal. Now if he had slept with his Professor that would be a scandal.

Depends on how cute his professor was.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Frazzled wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
Alpha 1 wrote:
This is a scandal ?

Not really. It is stupid to be sure, but not a scandal. Now if he had slept with his Professor that would be a scandal.

Depends on how cute his professor was.

Or whether Dont Ask Dont Tell was in effect at that point

**Dreadclaw69**

Alpha 1 wrote:
This is a scandal ?

One that rocks the Republic to its very foundations.

Or not

lliu wrote:
This is not a war gaming article. I know about politics but this is overboard. However, I vote he goes.

Welcome to Off-Topic. Here you'll find many more discussion threads such as this which typically do not correspond to war gaming

**Ouze**

Wow, sort of surprised he resigned. I wouldn't have, but I guess I wouldn't plagiarize giant chunks of a term paper either.